The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘littering’

A long time ago (although the way Kal and I are measuring time these days it might have been a few weeks ago) I took a friend who was getting into dowsing to a road that I knew well. I had been noticing lots of near misses along the road and had even felt peculiar passing over various places in the road. Now I wanted to check whether the road had any negative black streamA flow of subtle energy emerging from a source. The source is usually imbued with some negative qualities, for example, it may be a source of geopathic stress where geology is under pressure, or toxic gases are emitted. Alternatively, the source may be imbued with negative emotions such as anger, fear or hatred left there by the intent of a human being. The result is a toxic dispersal of flows of “black” energy. These flows can cause disruption to everything in their path, such as accident blackspots if they cross roads, or polluted streams if they contact water. energy passing over it, so I took my friend along to make the job of dowsing easier, and to see if we got similar results.

I sent my friend to the far end of the road, whereas I started at the near end. We were separated by about a quarter of a mile, and we walked towards each other. I could see in the distance that he was stopping every now and again, and re-tracing his steps. I had also found something. At several points down the road there were wide bands of dark energy flowing down the slope of the hill across which the road scythed. The bands were of a strength rating of around 7 (on a scale of 1-10) – a rating which meant that they were becoming a problem.

We met and confirmed each others’ findings. There were several streams of negative energy flowing across the lower half of the road too. Could we determine their source? If they were flowing down the hill, all of them, then wouldn’t their source be further up the hill? The rods indicated that there was a single source, and that it was near the top of the hill. As we were narrowly avoiding death by standing on this small country road as it was, and there was nothing visible near the top of the hill, I decided to leave finding the source until another day.

Several months passed. Spring and then Summer passed. I was travelling home past the top of the hill several times a week now, and my eye had begun to be attracted by a lane. Where did it go? It looked like it might go to the top of this “problem hill”. Might the source of the black streams be found along that path? The pressure mounted and the near misses on the road below seemed increasingly dangerous until one evening I decided to go and look.

The track was used as an entrance to one house, but was at the back of others which bordered the problem road below. The land was easy to walk, slightly overgrown and peaceful. Was there really a source of black energy up this way, I wondered? I got my rods out and dowsed:-

1. “Is there a source of black streamA flow of subtle energy emerging from a source. The source is usually imbued with some negative qualities, for example, it may be a source of geopathic stress where geology is under pressure, or toxic gases are emitted. Alternatively, the source may be imbued with negative emotions such as anger, fear or hatred left there by the intent of a human being. The result is a toxic dispersal of flows of “black” energy. These flows can cause disruption to everything in their path, such as accident blackspots if they cross roads, or polluted streams if they contact water. energy accessible from this lane?” – pretty precise, I thought. YES, came the response.
2. “Is the source of the black streamA flow of subtle energy emerging from a source. The source is usually imbued with some negative qualities, for example, it may be a source of geopathic stress where geology is under pressure, or toxic gases are emitted. Alternatively, the source may be imbued with negative emotions such as anger, fear or hatred left there by the intent of a human being. The result is a toxic dispersal of flows of “black” energy. These flows can cause disruption to everything in their path, such as accident blackspots if they cross roads, or polluted streams if they contact water. energy within half a mile?” – YES. Good. I didn’t intend spending all evening finding it!

I didn’t have long to wait. The lane bent slightly and suddenly the road that I had walked in from disappeared from view. Almost immediately I saw a heap of whiteness ahead of me. What was it? As I neared I began to recognise shapes – bit of plastic guttering, sheets of plasterboard, mastic casings, cardboard, lengths of painted wood….the list went on and on. Here was a dump of faded building material, clearly ripped out from a house nearby and then dumped by an unscrupulous builder to avoid time, expense and hassle!

Take a dump in the countryside

As I stood there aghast at this blot on the country loveliness around my head began to tighten. I was developing a headache! I moved away until the pressure eased, which was about twenty feet back down the path. Something had to be done. By me. I mustered my resources, put up some protection, and then ventured back into the fray to sort this out.

My protection guarded against being drained by this black source, yet I looked around for any alliance upon which I could draw. This was going to take more energy than I had on my own. I went into trance and felt around for compatriots amongst the nearby trees – some were willing but most were afraid to get involved. I admonished them (yes, I did, I told trees off – but it worked) and they relented in the face of my passionate plea. I called upon all the trees within the line of sight, especially the bigger ones, all the hedges, and finally all the shrubs and plants, to join together to help me put an energetic cage around this heap of crap in order to seal the dark force inside it and let the land heal. As I shaped the sphere of white strands of light around the pile I felt the gradual inclusion and collusion of the local plant life working with me. That made it really easy. Once the work was done I went around thanking the trees for their help.

A day later I dowsed for the effect: before I shielded the pile the black source was registering as a 9 out of 10. A day later the influence was at a level of 0.5 on the scale. Nearly dropping off the scale! I drove down the road affected by the black streams too and the road felt a little wider somehow! All I need to do now is convince (or shame) the local council into removing the rubbish. Or doing it myself if they won’t.

Gwas.

Once upon a time, when I was a small boy growing into his own sense of identity, I went through a phase of what can only be called “gang mentality”. I was living in urban Nelson in Lancashire at the time, and my only thoughts were to have fun with my small coterie of friends. Our idea of fun was to race around, shouting, running through gardens, knocking on doors then running away, smashing found glass bottles, throwing stones at things, and anything else that could be classed as “small boy mischief”. We took delight in egging each other on to fresh heights of stupidity and crassness.

One incident in particular I remember for its utter simplicity. It’s devastating effect upon me would only be felt many years down the line and remains with me still. It’s a really inane thing, but this is what happened. My gang and I were walking down the main street in our neighbourhood and we had just bought some sweets. We were busy walking, eating and unwrapping the sweets as we went, and we each threw the sweet wrappers into the street, onto the pavement. A boy slightly older than us, but who had a look of being a ‘nerd’, or at least not as socially popular as we thought we were, he stopped as soon as he saw us doing this. He watched us with scorn in his eyes – with disbelief as we merrily discarded the waxed paper wrappers all around us.

I caught the look in his eye and so did my friends. We smiled at each other – instantly recognising that we all had the same idea, and we threw more wrappers down. Then the older boy did something that we didn’t understand. Without a word, he began to pick all the wrappers up and put them into his pocket. We looked at him in disbelief. He must be a simpleton! We could have some fun here! It was one thing to disapprove, but here he was cleaning up after us! We couldn’t miss this opportunity, so we began to test how willing he was to do this again, walking on a little bit then wilfully scrunching another wrapper, eating the sweet and throwing the paper onto the floor. He turned around and began to follow us, a few feet behind, picking each wrapper up silently!

This continued for far longer than was fun for us. He wouldn’t go away. Whenever we dropped a wrapper he’d pick it up. We walked for miles (having three big bags of sweets to play with) and still he silently followed us, mopping up after our disgraceful littering. That incident has stayed with me all my life. Now, thanks to that episode, I abhor littering.

Last night Kal and I were discussing the idea of “picking up the litter” of one’s life by making some form of retribution, or an act of kindness or service. Kal had already been through this process and explained the cathartic effect it had had upon him. I said that I felt like I needed to make some kind of gesture of service, but at the moment that was a nameless, placeless and faceless platitude that I was sure I would “get around to” one day soon. As we parted I mentioned that I might be going out the next evening, “on a dowsing mission” but that I didn’t know where yet. He wondered whether to come, but I responded “It will be wet!” observing the dark clouds above, and he shivered and declined to follow it up.

This evening I dowsed in my house for a direction to travel in – south. South? I never went south. It was all city, town and concrete to the south. East, West or North were beautiful, and all points around, but South…I had never been dowsing to the south of my home. South, the rods said. How far, I enquired. Four miles, just under. Where the heck was that? Mentally I scanned the area, knowing it well, but couldn’t see anything. I decided to drive four miles away to the south and see what happened.

I got in the car and drove the requisite four miles whereupon I reached a roundabout and instinctively turned left. Then I tried to turn into a cycle path thinking it was a junction on a dual carriageway almost causing a pile-up behind me. Waves of apology to all other drivers. Something had wanted me to turn in there, so I followed my hunch of keeping turning left in an ever-decreasing spiral. I ended up parking in a small village that I didn’t even know was there, just outside of the nearby city. As I got out of the car I noticed that at the end of the road there was the dual carriageway I had tried to turn off. Aha – this was the right place to start then. I found a quiet place and asked the rods for directions – my next turn will be….right, and after that it will be…left. Then I would walk one kilometre and I would arrive “there”, wherever “there” was!

I turned right up the main village road. Would I find a footpath going left? No, the next left was a small road. I walked the road for about a kilometre until it was about to cross over a motorway. But wait! There was a service road alongside the motorway with an open gate…. I asked the rods to guide me in. They swung along the service road, so I followed. Immediately they swung to the right, and I walked through a gap in the hawthorn hedge…to reveal a stunning sight – a small pond, surrounded by old willow trees and sitting by the side of a beautiful field carpeted by buttercups and wild flowers!

I had directed the rods to take me to a place where I could integrate all of the lessons I had recently learned in Ireland. Here was the place, I knew this, and it didn’t get any wetter than this – a pond! I sat on the edge of the pond and thought about why I was here at this place. As I gazed into the pond I realised what I was looking at – the willow tree opposite, and in the only bit of clear water in the whole pond, from this exact place I could see the tree’s entire reflection! I understood immediately that this was the image I had been seeking – the integration – all that is above the water line, and all that was below it in perfect symmetry – the very symbol of integration!

I meditated for a while hoping for some sort of inspirational message, but I on;y got one thought. To complete this integration, to learn my lessons, I had to clean this pond up. I had to come back and remove all the litter, the cans, the wrappers, everything that bespoiled the site. That was my mission. That was how I would finally erase the memory of that litter-bug incident – by an act of pure selflessness. I, and I alone would clean this pond up.

I will report back when the work is done. A Hedge Druid’s work gets harder every day!

Gwas.